Fair Weather Racing

On -20, snowy chairlift rides wearing nothing but a thin layer of spandex I start to question my insanity.  If I wasn't so addicted to the mountains and the white fluffy stuff that covers them there is no way you could get me out into the cold. Recently I've discovered there are other ways to enjoy the thrills of racing in mild even hot climates!

On concrete
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzbWpcrxGSI

On grass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFqTeYJbuEs

On turf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8SiZ5RZp9U

I won't have to even wear a speed suit or invest in goggles!!

Big Bertha Bruising is Back

When I was still in High School, I would come back from a ski trip and the latest bruises I had to showcase would alarm my fellow class mates and make my teachers question domestic violence. However, for some reason I just naturally seem more prone to bruising then any other skier, I know. I guess I am  repetitively  hitting hard cold plastic at 100km/h but my bruises get bigger and brighter then some one who has been in a car crash. After two weeks of speed and wearing arm protection, this is what I returned home sporting....

This is NOT even close to the biggest, brightest bruise.... 

Chile 2011

Both arms from hitting gates

From crashing

Red Mountain 2010

From crashing and landing on my ski

This recent bruising is all on my left arm without a mark on my right. It seemed weird but I figured my right footed turns were just better than my left and therefore I was hitting the gates harder on that side. My old Castle Mountain coach Jean-Marc who is now coaching with Calgary Alpine approached me in Apex and said he noticed I was having trouble initiating the top of my right footed turns. He said he has been observing this problem for a while and believes that it could be a problem with my boot alignment. After the speed Norams I went to Lou's Ski Shop in Calgary where he had me stand in my ski boots, on a pressure pad and we discovered that
75% of my pressure was on to the outside and 25% to the inside with more naturally on my right foot. It should be 50/50 for everything. To move the pressure more even it took five minutes. All we did was move the cuffs of my boots out, and a little further out on my right then left. What a difference!!!! Now I'm able to effortlessly roll my skis on edge! The bruising it turns out was due to the fact that I didn't have time to start the top of the turn on most of my right footers and to compensate I was twisting my body and hitting gates in places where there wasn't padding on my arms.

The slight adjustment to my boots was instantly apparent. Right after I had a successful Super G series at the Nakiska Vanhoutte Cup where I took my first win of the season and was on the podium all three days. I was home for a week skiing powder at Castle and was again amazed by my new control. I'm now in Sunpeaks training SL and GS. I am super excited to get my technical events tuned up and to further my alignment experiments. Hopefully this is the fix I needed to keep my bruises at bay!

Speed, Strudel and Snow

 With my ankle well rested and feeling good I said goodbye to my family and flew to Munich. Meeting up with coaches Don and Speedy, we jumped in our massive van and headed to Spittal, Austria for a day of Super G training before two races.

The biggest team van for seven people

The train we had to lap on instead of a chairlift

The weather was uncooperative with that plan. Snow and fog made for long days of waiting in the lodge. After some success for Canadians when the race finally happened (Juila Roth in 2nd and Sarah Elliot in fourth) we packed up our lives and hit the Autobahn.

Instead of waiting in the lodge Vicky and I took advantage of the snow in Austria

Two or less nights in on place became our pattern. We headed to Garmisch, Germany for a double super G and seemed to be followed by the fog.

Beautiful weather on our cute little street

The nicest ladies at our hotel would draw happy faces on our hard bold eggs in the mornings

 

 Next was Sella Nevea, Italy where instead of downhill, we got faceshots in the meter of snow that just kept falling.

The track looked like a lot of fun

Sella Nevea has lifts that go into Slovenia but unfortunately they were closed due to avalanche danger. 

As we traveled through Europe, the mountains and castles we passed at speeds of 130km+ were breath taking.

I want to grow up and own a castle one day

The whole series in Italy got cancelled before it even began because of the snowy weather so we headed to Maria Alm, Austria for GS races where we saw the sun for the first time during our trip.

View as you walked out of our ski room

The start

A break from our hectic trip came after the GS's when Rikke and Siri had our whole team stay at their beautiful house in Innsbruck. They were wonderfully hospitable and everyone felt instantly at home. We went to the old part of the city to be tourists and Don took us to an amazing strudel cafe that he found when he was in Innsbruck for the 76 Olympics. They had 16 different types of sweet strudel and a dozen more of savory.

It was such a nice restful time off, I can't thank Rikke and Siri enough for having us stay. Little things like being able to do a load of laundry, make your own breakfast or curl up together in the living room to watch a movie makes a world of difference when you are on the road.

 I love traveling and exploring new places and this trip has been full of that. Even though there has been challenges like winter conditions and higher levels of competition, everyone has stayed positive and is skiing hard. We have a really fun group of girls from all over Canada who love to go fast. Now we are back in Italy for more Super G racing!

That's all for meow!

Moose Wonderful Time of the Year!

              After a long prep season of too many squats to count, we finally got to do our first race of the season at the Speed Norams in Copper Mountain, Colorado. Even though we had less pre-season speed training than planned due to Global Warming, the races went relatively well considering I never felt like I was able to execute a full run. On the last day of the series I crashed into the nets at 100km four gates from the finish. Unfortunately since it was the last day the coaches didn't have the video cameras on but I was told by one American coach that my crash was the best he had ever seen live. I walked away with a buggered up ankle (opposite one as this summer) that made it really hurt to pressure the front of my stiff racing boots. I ended up not being able to race the Panorama Noram Series or the Van Houtte Cup before Christmas. As hard as it was to not strap on my skis for most of the Christmas break, my sights were set on healing for a three week Europe trip in the New Year. The time with my family was amazing. It had been a year since all 3 sisters had been together and it was a reunion full of sleep overs, fleecy pajamas and cat shirts. 

 Christmas morning at our cabin at Castle Mountain was sunny, snowy and beautiful! It was great spending the holidays with my Mom's newest addition to Team Cas Libby. She is wonderfully helpful and happy. The way she fits in with our family after only a few months proves how fantastic she is. It was so fun for me to get to witness some of her first winter experiences. She was over joyed by the snow on the trees, the frozen lakes and getting to look out the window at all the skiers passing by. Switching from flip flops to winter boots was a big change but we couldn't be more grateful that she did.

 Christmas breakfast after presents and face masks with a wonderful bouquet from Windymere.

 Christmas at Grandma's was as always hilarious, delicious and amazing to be together. Presents from Alice and Charlie were definitely a hit!

Since everyone was out on the slopes during the day I went on adventures in the snow with my friend Jenga.

 We had another person join our family over the holidays who had little experience in winter. Kyra's friend Nick Dobbie from New Zealand stayed with us for only five days and it was so much fun by the end we wanted to adopt him. He would be the red head child my mom always dreamed of having.

Annual New Year's Hockey and Nick's first time on a frozen lake!

 I'm so lucky to be able to visit and explore all kinds of mountains with my skiing. All are unique and have different slopes and terrain to play on. I love skiing new places but there is something about skiing the familiar runs that you learned to ski on that makes me bubble over with joy. I finally got to go out skiing with everyone at the end of my break and I couldn't have been happier. I love my home and my family!

Colorado Noram Article

First speed Noram of the season

http://www.pinchercreekvoice.com/2012/12/sarah-freeman-of-pincher-creek-best.html

Snow, snow, where did you go?

        After the first week, the weather in Chile became nothing but beautiful sunny days. It felt like summer again and we were once again in shorts and T-shirts. The hot weather meant everyday our first run had to be an inspection, finding the new rock gardens that had broken through the thinning snow pack. 

 

               View from my window                                       That cloud is CRAY!

Instead of a minute thirty Downhill we had a 15 gate Super G

      
         Both the American Men's Team and the BC Men's were heading home after just two weeks in Chile. My team was planning to make the eight hour bus down to Termas de Chillan. The day before we were packed up to leave, the Spanish National Team reported that the snow in Chillan was disappearing fast, there was probably only three days left of skiing down there if the heat continued. Instead of strapping on my skis again, I suddenly found myself strapping on my seat belt on a plane headed back to Canada!

         My travel route was Santiago to Toronto, Toronto to Calgary, so instead of heading back to Calgary after just two weeks, I decided to visit Emma in Kingston and changed my ticket to have a week layover in Toronto. Unfortunately I still had all of my luggage to lug around with me, from downtown Toronto to Pickering to Kingston and back. Luckily there are some amazing people in this world that are willing help a twenty year old girl get around with 250lbs of equipment! The Pavlidis' are top on that list of people. They not only gave me a place to stay and fed me my first home made meals in weeks but also drove me to the train station at seven am and RAN with all my stuff to catch the train to Kingston. I was sent off with a bagged breakfast and apologies that they couldn't help me out more!

        Emma met me on the other side with a borrowed car and whisked me off to start meeting all her friends, attend a class or two and explore Kingston in all its fall beauty. It was fantastic to finally meet people I had heard stories about for the past four years. I felt like I already knew most of her friends and they were all incredibly welcoming and fun. My cousin Alice Main is in her first year at Queen's, living just across campus from Emma. It was wonderful to catch up with her, tour her dorm and attend a drama class with her. I ended up spending most of my time hanging out with Emma's friends while she and Alice attended class and tried to be studious. 
  
           Emma and I spent my whole last day exploring Wolfe Island on bikes. Wolfe Island is a lot like Pincher Creek; windmills, farms, small towns and open sky. It was marvelous to get out of the city and enjoy fall. After we had a picnic on the Big Sandy Beach we met up with Alice's brother Charlie, who goes to school at McGill and came to Kingston for Thanksgiving. Our trio completed the local corn maze and celebrated with hot chocolate and pizza.

 

            Catching a bus from Kingston to Toronto at 1am, a plane from Toronto to Calgary at 7am and then driving the two hours to Pincher, I made it home in time for my Grandma's famous Thanksgiving feast. I was welcomed home to 10inchs of snow in the Rocky Mountains!

            I had traveled halfway around the world searching for snow and it was waiting for me in my back yard when I got home.

An Awesome Day in Portillo

I haven't been feeling the best for the last couple days so finally yesterday I saw the doctor who is  here with the American Team. He diagnosed me with Strep Throat and put me on antibiotics. Today I woke up feeling like a new person! The team had the day off skiing and it turned out to be an incredible sunny spring day! 

First stop this morning

Went for a lake walk with Sarah

 Silken Rauhala and I discovered that the super nice owner of the hotel has kayaks that he is more than willing to lend us! Since it has been such a warm snowless spring Laguna del Inca the lake isn't frozen

The view from the other side is stunning! The cold water is the brightest shade of blue